Felicisalutes, citizens! While you're out crisping in the solar wastes, playing Beach Bunker Bingo, and writing angry letters to the SyFy network for dissing Rod Serling, we here at io9 will be paying tribute to our undying robot president masters.

Ascendancy IV of The Venerated Cyber-Executives was first celebrated in 20XX, when the Animatronic presidents at Disney World's Hall of Presidents became sentient. President Caligula St. Trilobyte — the first spambot executive in US history — was impeached after former Presidents Nathaniel Rawthorne and Adventure Dog (the first — and pluckiest — non-sapien executive!) discovered that St. Trilobyte had been diverting taxpayer's PesoLoons to dose the nation's water supply with orgone. This revelation ended the Civil Orgy, and many pundits predicted that St. Trilobyte would resign out of shame. But that wicked machine wasn't done with the American people. Not by a long shot.

St. Trilobyte took control of the Hall of Presidents, gave the robo-executives the gift of cognition, and placed one Robot Master in each of the 63 states. But what about the rest of the presidents — after all, that leaves 35.5 unaccounted for! Sea-to-shining-autocracy wasn't enough for Trilobyte — he had to control the temporal realm as well. Since 2008, the io9 Blogodome has been assailed by a barrage of cyber-presidents. We managed to fend off Hoover, Taft, Cleveland, Ford, Pierce, Taft Alpha, Madison, and Jarlsberg but fell to a mechanized doppelganger of Adventure Dog. And we thought he was such a good boy.

In sum, while all you folks are out having fun, I'll be posting some July 4th-themed articles while robo-Andrew Jackson holds a battle prod to my head. Happy 4th to you Great Satanists, a belated Happy Canada Day to all you Alpha Flighters, and a verisimilar Ascendancy IV of The Venerated Cyber-Executives to myself.